Saturday, June 27, 2015

A New Young Adult Series, News and Updates

I have not been very consistent on this blog lately. I know it’s been a while since you heard from me. The last post was in April and prior to that was December, and that one wasn’t even my words. I apologize for my neglect.

I’ve come to remedy this. To let you in on all the things going on in my life. To share the exiting news and commiserate over the difficulties. I haven’t just mean absent from the blog of late. If you’ve friended or followed me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter or even Pinterest, well I’ve been mostly hiding there as well. I’ve had fits and spurts of activity, and have been trying for more lately, but in the last few months life has dealt me a few personal blows.

I lost three family members in May. One canine and two relatives of the human persuasion. I’ve also had a diagnosis of doggy diabetes for my remaining baby. It’s been a struggle, but I’ve tried to find the positives in all these things. Losing my first baby prepared me for the coming losses. I was lucky enough to be there and have some special time with one of them. I was able to say goodbye. And I was able provide support where it was needed with other family members. The diagnosis of my critter has forced me to get up off my butt, but it’s also made me want to take steps to improve my own health and then do so. As a result, I’ve lost eight pounds in the last two weeks.

In those same few months, as you know I finished a novel and began another. I’ve been writing as feverishly as I can, which initially accounted for my absence. I will be releasing the first in the trilogy sometime in the next month. Novel two is in the final stages of the first draft and I hope to have it finished in the next week or so, but happy events may delay that.

I also attended a wonderful writers conference with and even more wonderful friend, who also happens to be an awesome writer. It was a treasured experience. I learned a lot in just a few short days and met so many wonderful people. I got out of my comfort zone. I took a bus across state lines. It was beautiful and amazing and I loved every minute of it. (We have city busses, but we don’t really have big bus lines like there are down in the Lower 48.)

All of these events have me revaluating my life, reflecting on where I’m at and where I’d like to be. But it’s easy to fall back into ruts once normal life resumes, losing those magical insights we found during times of struggle or change or even the stepping out from our normal routine.

I watched a Ted Talk yesterday. I love Ted Talks, but this one was the type of special that stands above the rest. In it a little girl was talking about her mission to save enslaved children around the world. She is an inspiration. She has a quote that resonated with me so strongly. “Start with your heart.” What a wise statement from someone so young. The context might be very different, but I stopped and thought long and hard about that statement and what it meant to me.

I would like to apply the idea of starting with your heart to my own life. My heart is with my family, is with meeting people and making connections, it’s with learning and it’s with writing. Knowing where my heart is the first step. Going forward, I’d like to try to put those things above all the rest and see how what changes it causes.